Who makes Telecaster single coil pickups with adjustable pole pieces?

[chris32895]

So I have a tele and I really like playing fingerstyle on it and I like the single coil pickups that it came with. However, I was having issues setting the neck pickup height such that the high e string was not super tinny and brittle sounding. So, I replaced the single coil with a humbucker just so I could adjust the pole-pieces but I find the sound is now a little too fat. I really miss the clarity and separation of voices I got from the single coil neck pickup. I tried a soapbar P90 (SD Antiquity) but found it to be a little too thin sounding and harsh to my tastes.

Are there any makers out there who make a traditional tele single coil neck pickup, but with adjustable pole pieces like a humbucker?

P.S. I did look at the G&L MFD pickups but when asking their customer support found they use ceramic magnets. Other accounts say they are not typically tele sounding and quite harsh.

[pcjazz]

I have a TK Smith CC-style bar pickup with adjustable pole pieces in a Tele body. Very warm and smooth-sounding with some bite when pushed. Highly recommended.

[chris32895]

The best is the Lindy Fralin steel pole 42 or Steel Pole 43.

These look great, but unfortunately they say they are trying to emulate a P90 and also use ceramic magnets, which I am not a huge fan of.

[chris32895]

Bill & Becky Wilde / pu’s designed by Bill Lawrence make a bridge and neck p/u with adjustable pole pieces.

Wilde Pickups Micro-coil Telecaster p/u’s

I shot an email over to Becky to see what type of magnets are used and what the general DCR is for these. I can't seem to find anything on their product page.

[ruger9]

Fender Cobalt Chrome p/u’s have adjustable pole pieces.

That's because the poles ARE the magnets: they are FeCrCo... very bright pickups, wouldn't be my first choice for jazzy tones.

To the OP: I don't think you need adjustable poles to tame your high E, I just think you need to find the right pickup. I only have experience with a few neck telecaster pickups, but I can say the Fender Texas Special neck, which is overwound, has less "snappy" "thin" "whatever adjective you want to use" E & B strings than regular telecaster neck humbuckers.

[jim777]

Maybe a Boss GE-7? Get one with a return policy and you're out nothing to try it.

[omphalopsychos]

I have a TK Smith CC-style bar pickup with adjustable pole pieces in a Tele body. Very warm and smooth-sounding with some bite when pushed. Highly recommended.

I LOVE THIS PICKUP. I switched to a blade CC from TK and kinda regret it. I think the pole piece one is better. A little more articulate, as far as I can remember.

[Cunamara]

I agree with #627CoG. Great pickups. There are or at least once there were two options with the Micro Coil pickups. One was alnico rod magnets (which thus did not have adjustable pole pieces) and the other was ceramic which did have adjustable pole pieces. Since there is currently no choice given on the website, I'm assuming the current production is all ceramic magnet versions which have the adjustable pole pieces.

I have the ceramic version in one of my Telecasters and they are simply outstanding. Do not blindly accept the misconception that ceramic pickups sound a certain way and alnico sounds a certain way. There is far more to pickup design than just what magnet is involved. I find these pickups to be Tele-sounding and able to have a nice round, non-spiky top end (250K pots, .047 cap and a 470K (IIRC) resistor in parallel between the bridge pickup hot output and ground). If you want icepick, with the correct selection of potentiometers and capacitors you can have that; I don't like it, so I modify Telecasters to avoid that by adding the resistor in parallel on the bridge pickup (there are wiring diagrams about this at Bill's website and also Lindy Fralin's website; the latter is more explanatory and shows the math).

There is a reason that Bill Lawrence is a legendary pickup designer, which is that he understood the physics of magnetic circuits better than most pickup designers. He could do the math. Indeed, at least two of the best known pick up builders in the world- Kent Armstrong and Larry Dimarzio- got their starts working for Bill. Bill knew how to design a pickup with a ceramic magnet to sound very good. I would note that Bill liked a bright, clear pickup and utilized potentiometers, capacitors and resistors to tailor the sound as desired. I am a fan of that approach even though I like a pretty dark, fat sound; selection of pots, resistors and capacitors allow for a tremendous amount of tonal flexibility if you have the right signal to work with.

For what it's worth, DCR is basically an irrelevant measurement for guitar pickups. DC resistance tells you something about how long the wire is, but since pickups are an AC signal generator, it's not that helpful. But it's easy to measure with a multimeter, unlike the other more important properties of a guitar pickup (internal capacitance, induction, etc.) which require greater technical expertise and equipment.

Demos, neither of which involve any jazz playing-

In this video, hearing the pickups rather than conversation about the guitar, recording setup, etc., begins around 1:45

This video compares the Bill Lawrence Micro Coil pickups with Don Mare pickups. To me, the Lawrences win hands-down and cost a fraction of the Mare pickups. There are some good pictures of what the Micro Coil pickups look like as well as sound like; they're not like anything else on the market in terms of their structure.

My other telecaster pick ups are Wilde noise-canceling ones which are stacked humbuckers. They also sound great and very close to the single coil sound, although there is just a tad of compression.

[chris32895]

I agree with #627CoG. Great pickups. There are or at least once there were two options with the Micro Coil pickups. One was alnico rod magnets (which thus did not have adjustable pole pieces) and the other was ceramic which did have adjustable pole pieces. Since there is currently no choice given on the website, I'm assuming the current production is all ceramic magnet versions which have the adjustable pole pieces.

I have the ceramic version in one of my Telecasters and they are simply outstanding. Do not blindly accept the misconception that ceramic pickups sound a certain way and alnico sounds a certain way. There is far more to pickup design than just what magnet is involved. I find these pickups to be Tele-sounding and able to have a nice round, non-spiky top end (250K pots, .047 cap and a 470K (IIRC) resistor in parallel between the bridge pickup hot output and ground). If you want icepick, with the correct selection of potentiometers and capacitors you can have that; I don't like it, so I modify Telecasters to avoid that by adding the resistor in parallel on the bridge pickup (there are wiring diagrams about this at Bill's website and also Lindy Fralin's website; the latter is more explanatory and shows the math).

There is a reason that Bill Lawrence is a legendary pickup designer, which is that he understood the physics of magnetic circuits better than most pickup designers. He could do the math. Indeed, at least two of the best known pick up builders in the world- Kent Armstrong and Larry Dimarzio- got their starts working for Bill. Bill knew how to design a pickup with a ceramic magnet to sound very good. I would note that Bill liked a bright, clear pickup and utilized potentiometers, capacitors and resistors to tailor the sound as desired. I am a fan of that approach even though I like a pretty dark, fat sound; selection of pots, resistors and capacitors allow for a tremendous amount of tonal flexibility if you have the right signal to work with.

For what it's worth, DCR is basically an irrelevant measurement for guitar pickups. DC resistance tells you something about how long the wire is, but since pickups are an AC signal generator, it's not that helpful. But it's easy to measure with a multimeter, unlike the other more important properties of a guitar pickup (internal capacitance, induction, etc.) which require greater technical expertise and equipment.

Demos, neither of which involve any jazz playing-

In this video, hearing the pickups rather than conversation about the guitar, recording setup, etc., begins around 1:45

This video compares the Bill Lawrence Micro Coil pickups with Don Mare pickups. To me, the Lawrences win hands-down and cost a fraction of the Mare pickups. There are some good pictures of what the Micro Coil pickups look like as well as sound like; they're not like anything else on the market in terms of their structure.

My other telecaster pick ups are Wilde noise-canceling ones which are stacked humbuckers. They also sound great and very close to the single coil sound, although there is just a tad of compression.

Thanks a bunch, that's very helpful. I may go with the Wilde pickups simply because of reputation and price alone. The CC pickup is also up there, but much pricier and I'd need a new pickguard.

[entresz]

I had an adjustable micro coil set in my Telecaster - they are great sounding pickups. Very full and rich sounding, but with heaps of clarity too. With that said, the polepiece adjustment didn't have much effect on string balance. They are well balanced to start with so it wasn't an issue.